Tadpoles Lead My Students Across the Social Divide

As a fourth-grade teacher, sometimes I feel like the social director on a cruise ship. On the playground, I try to match up students with peers. “Why don’t you go and see what Alanna is doing?” Or sometimes, “It looks like Daniel and Hunter are having fun playing tag—let’s practice how you could go and ask them if you can join in.” Then in the classroom, I pair students up to accomplish tasks. “Melanie and Jorge, you’ll be working together to read for science today.”

I do this because I know that my students are changing. As the year progresses, they start to spend more and more time with their comfortable peer groups—and less time with students who have other backgrounds and interests. Sometimes I worry that, even with my efforts, the divisions among students become wider every day.

So when these different students talk to each other without my intervention, I get excited. And that is just how I felt when I saw what was happening at the tadpole table this spring.

The tadpoles, rescued from a forest puddle, were temporary classroom guests. When the teacher next door brought them in, I quickly prepared a small container for them. Then I set up some markers and drawing paper, and made a hasty center for students to visit when they were finished with other tasks. I expected students to enjoy observing the tadpoles, but I didn’t expect the social interaction that followed.

“What kind are they?”

“Did you see the pictures from yesterday?”

“Look—they have longer tails now!”

As we realized how quickly the tadpoles changed from day to day, we started to document their growth. Each day, students visited the table to add to our growing chart of observations and records. And each day, I noticed the talk increasing. Something about the tiny creatures caused my students to step beyond their social boundaries.

They were so excited that they talked to whoever was around—whether that person was one of their usual friends or not. I saw students who never chose to work together leaning over, side by side, sharing a conversation about what they observed. Tiny as they were, the tadpoles proved to be far more effective at building relationships than I had ever been.

It doesn’t have to be tadpoles, really. Any items that are interesting enough to pull students into an experience can make this happen. When students have time together and a meaningful shared experience, they naturally move across social boundaries. The boundaries are still there, of course. But the divisions are not so wide—which means that we can work and play and learn together.

And I don’t have to work quite so hard as the social director for our classroom.

Kissner is a fourth-grade teacher in Pennsylvania.